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NEWPORT, R.I. – James L. Yarnall, professor and chairman of the art department at Salve Regina University who is a leading expert on American 19th century artist John La Farge, will present a public talk, “How I Spent My Cyber-Sabbatical with 4,617 Drawings by John La Farge,” on Wednesday, April 2 at 5 p.m. in the DiStefano Lecture Hall, located in the Antone Academic Center on Lawrence Avenue.

Sponsored by McKillop Library, the program is free and open to the public.

The Yale University Art Gallery owns 94 sketchbooks containing more than 4,500 drawings by La Farge, and cataloguing these drawings became a 2013 sabbatical project for Yarnall. Anticipating public online access to the sketchbooks, Yale University photographed each page in 2012 with a high-resolution digital camera. This permitted a digitally based cyber-sabbatical that exploited Dr. Yarnall’s massive scholarship files housed in Newport. This presentation illustrates the project and includes examination of some of the sketchbooks on Yale University’s web site.

In 2012, Yarnall’s book, “John La Farge, A Biographical and Critical Study,” was published by Ashgate Publishing Ltd. It is the first biography in a century of the American painter, illustrator, muralist, stained-glass artist and writer. He is also author of “Newport Through Its Architecture: A History of Styles from Postmedieval to Postmodern.”

Yarnall has a bachelor of arts degree in French language and literature from Stonehill College (Easton, Mass.) and a master of arts degree and doctorate in art history from the University of Chicago.